Implementation Of Chinese Character Instructional Design For Beginning CFL Canadian Mature Learners

Many beginning learners of Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) experience challenges in learning Chinese characters (hanzi) and often struggle through the process of character memorization and production. Chinese teachers need to address these problems during the initial stage of Chinese language acquisition and to find optimal ways of introducing characters when students are being taught core vocabulary of daily life. Based on a review of studies both in China and North America and the current CFL teaching situation in Canada, this paper presents an instructional design that emphasizes the importance of early acquisition of selected Chinese characters and its implementation for a group of beginning CFL Canadian adult learners.The research includes a literature review which focuses on the topic of introducing hanzi to CFL beginners, an instructional assessment about the local community (Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada), four learner profiles of a group of four English-speaking adult learners from Nanaimo, the instructional design, and the teaching assessment data collected in and out of class. This paper discusses the author’s teaching practice of pacing and sequencing of hanzi based on the features of hanzi and the needs of English-speaking Canadian mature learners. The purpose of the research is to find effective learning strategies and optimal ways to teach hanzi to beginning learners through analyzing first-hand data collected from the participants.The instructional design follows the student-centered approach of teaching Chinese through teaching hanzi, and it includes the use of specific strategies and activities designed to facilitate the learning of selected hanzi from Let’s Learn Chinese1, a beginner’s Chinese language textbook written in Canada for Canadians. In total, one hundred and eight characters (including five radicals) were taught according to the corpus of character use. Each class included studying hanzi individually to facilitate the learning of Chinese orthography; learning strategies and mnemonics for remembering hanzi and radicals; how characters combine together to produce core vocabulary; and how to use these hanzi in context to produce sentences, phrases, and meaningful passages for everyday use. The design also combined the teaching of hanzi with the teaching of other Chinese Language teaching components.The actual teaching took place from September17-December3,2013. It consisted of a one-hour class each week over a period of three months. The purpose of this implementation of hanzi teaching unit was to explore the feasibility and effectiveness of using the student-centered approach of teaching Chinese through teaching hanzi. As effective assessment is key to student learning, many assessment tools were used during class:the on-going class observations, students’self-evaluation, and written assignments which determined effective teaching strategies and reveal many detailed areas that need further attention. One area that requires further study is how to introduce appropriate hanzi and other Chinese learning resources to assist students’independent reading and writing.The findings of this paper suggest the following considerations to optimize student learning:it is necessary to foster an awareness of the role of hanzi at an initial stage of Chinese language acquisition; the introduction of hanzi to beginning CFL learners should reflect careful pacing and sequencing; and the use of dictionaries and on-line tools can motivate and contribute to CFL learners’success when completing written assignments in hanzi.Of the various strategies students used to enhance their memorization of hanzi, the students considered the following to be most effective:a) carefully notation and discussion of the shape of each Chinese character; b) using a key word to recall the shape/meaning/sound of characters; c) creating a story to serve the purpose of "scaffolding"; d) relating and sorting characters with similar shapes; e) using addition and subtraction as a method to understand character patterns; f) visual repetition and review; g) combining radical knowledge and a key words reminder.